Photography a constant learning experience for Dave Keys
Regular Chronicle contributor derives great pleasure from capturing local wildlife
A skilled photographer has to be ready for just about anything — even a stubborn gang of wild turkeys.
Such was the case recently for Dave Keys who found himself shepherding the large birds along a path at Beechwood Cemetery. These characters were definitely ready for their close-up and allowed the Manor Park resident plenty of time to ‘shoot’ them from all sides.
“After a while I slowly kept walking alongside them and they all decided to come walk with me,” he notes in an email exchange with the Chronicle. “They seemed to be quietly chatting among themselves as we moved along. After perhaps 15 minutes they lost interest and wandered off. It was quite an interesting experience.”
Dave is a talented photographer who’s generously shared some of his work with the paper for almost a decade. Pics of flora, fauna, air shows, marathoners and even the occasional lunar eclipse have graced the Chronicle’s pages over the years.
Early start
In a follow-up interview, Dave says his love for the craft started long before his involvement with the paper. He was encouraged at a young age by both of his parents who were avid shutterbugs.
He joined the camera club at his high school here in Ottawa and learned how to make black and white prints in his father’s dark room.
“Then I went off to school in Europe for a year and my dad gave me his single-lens reflex (SLR) camera, which were the cameras to have at the time,” Dave says.
Over time, his interest in the hobby evolved — dominated by family photos and travelogues from different trips.
“During that time, it was really mostly snapshots like everybody else did,” he says modestly.
That interest developed into a passion during an Arctic cruise almost 20 years ago. Professional photographer Mike Beedell, who was on-board the ship, shared tips and expertise that set Dave off in a new direction.
“I can remember one day, he and I and a couple of other guys just went for a stroll … along a beach on Baffin Island,” he recalls. “He was describing what he was seeing … so I was starting to look at the world through his eyes. He’s an artist, really, (and) he was seeing stuff that I did not see.”
The man turned over one of his digital single-lens reflex cameras to Dave, “and it just went from there. I’ve never gone back to film.”
Self taught
Since then, Dave has taken the time to learn all he can about digital photography. His equipment inventory has grown with the addition of Nikon cameras and lenses. He’s also become proficient with various photo programs on his computer, even starting to take advantage of Artificial Intelligence on occasion.
“You can do so much … the computer really is a digital darkroom,” he explains. “It’s all a learning process — all the way from the artistry, composing, understanding light. I don’t have a particularly strong artistic bent (but) the technical was fun for me to learn, I like that.”
He continued to absorb more information from an artist friend in Wyoming shortly after the Arctic cruise. While Dave showed her what he knew about digital cameras, she offered advice on the potential artistry of each shot. “The two of us had a great time together trying to learn off each other.”
Evolving subject interests
Dave says his initial interest was in scenic and landscape photography. He particularly loved the rugged terrain of New Zealand’s South Island. He and his wife Mary visited their daughter Christina and her family on several occasions when they lived there. A particularly striking photo of the territory off the west coast, overlooking the Tasman Sea, caught the attention of the Globe and Mail which published the shot in its travel section.
There were also birds — lots of birds — “and they’re everywhere,” Dave says.
He started photographing the feathered creatures, starting around 2013, and that has continued ever since.
“It’s interesting because I’m not a birder,” he says. “There are bird photographers and then there are birders. I’m learning about birds but I’m not an expert. So, of course, when you get a good photo of a bird, you go to the book and figure out what it is.”
Back home, he says he doesn’t travel far to look for birds. “Around the lake (MacKay) has, on and off, been good, as well as over at Macoun Marsh and then up to the cemetery.”
Macro photography
More recently, Dave says he’s taken to ‘macro photography’, extreme close-ups of flowers, insects or other small subjects. He gets to use this technique often in his daughter’s garden. Christina moved back Ottawa and now operates Cardinal Glen Ecological Landscaping. The Manor Park resident says he enjoys getting calls to come over and capture the wide variety of plants and flowers at different times of the year. Many factors can affect the quality of such photos, he’s learned.
“Photographing a garden, you’ve got to pay attention to light. Background is also really important,” he explains.
Then there’s the wind. “A lot of these plants have long stems and they’ll just weave and bob. It’s really fun to learn about all this stuff.”
Sharing his skills
Today, Dave takes particular pleasure sharing his love of photography with his grandson Louis.
“He likes going on the expeditions with me which is fun. We’ve been off to Mer Bleue (bog boardwalk) and we often go over to the airfield and hang out at the end of the airstrip.”
Louis has taken photos of birds and aircraft though he’s not quite as interested in plants yet, Dave says with a laugh.
Processing the photos on the computer has come naturally for the bright nine-year-old, especially working on a close-up of a helicopter that passed overhead. “He just got right into it, really messing around with it. So we got some really interesting effects.”
Whether published or not, ultimately it’s the pleasure he gets from photography that makes it worthwhile. “The point is, I do it for me and I do it for learning, and I do it for fun,” he says. “I don’t really have to win photo contests, … or don’t even have to send it to anybody, I just have to enjoy it myself.”